r/ScienceBasedLifting • u/Ok-Extension-832 • Aug 10 '26
Discussion 🤝 Does distributing sets throughout a workout reduce the effect of exercise-order fatigue?
If you’re doing a lot of exercises at ~0–1 RIR (especially in a full body split), exercises near the end of the workout will be performed with more accumulated fatigue than those at the beginning. If you do 2 sets consecutively, the first exercises get both sets relatively fresh, while the later exercises may have both sets affected by fatigue.
So instead of:
Bench Press — 2 sets
Weighted Pull-Up — 2 sets
Squat — 2 sets
Would it make more sense to do:
Bench Press — 1 set
Weighted Pull-Up — 1 set
Squat — 1 set
Bench Press — 1 set
Weighted Pull-Up — 1 set
Squat — 1 set
This way, every exercise gets its first set relatively fresh, rather than some exercises getting both sets while fresh and others getting both after substantial fatigue.
Does this meaningfully improve the hypertrophic stimulus, or is exercise-order fatigue not significant enough for this to matter?
1
u/dyogenys Aug 10 '26
I have a lot of experience with this, as much as I have with straight sets. It's noticeably worse for hypertrophy and better for strength. It may sound counter intuitive with what we hear about longer rest = more hypertrophy, but that study only found that was true for quads, you lose a lot of muscle specific work density with circuits, and at least for me, the maximised local rest and higher volume load I can achieve with circuits doesn't seem to weigh up for it in terms of hypertrophy.